Green Ink: Forget Gas, Let’s Look for Oil

The weak dollar trumps weak demand, pushing oil prices higher Monday, reports Bloomberg, and a slight dip in OPEC production doesn’t help the supply picture. The prospect of even more interest-rate cuts to shore up the U.S. economy is only pressuring the dollar further, thus giving legs to commodity investors, AP reports. The U.S. needs to cut consumption of oil—and not just in a recession—to leave enough for the rest of the world, at Platt’s Barrel.

Gasoline prices flirt with record levels thanks to low refinery utilization, reports Bloomberg. More capacity is on the way: The WSJ (sub reqd) looks at the mammoth Port Arthur refinery and how it will make heavy, sour crude oil attractive. What’s not attractive is Mexico’s political interference with its oil industry, says a WSJ editorial (sub req.) Only by freeing monopoly Pemex up to competition will Mexico again be a world-class producer. Meanwhile, oil prices are outstripping natural gas prices—driving many gas companies to ramp up crude exploration, in the WSJ (sub reqd.) Though natural gas will have its day: Power company Sempra has quietly laid the foundations for the natural gas infrastructure needed to run new power-plants, in the WSJ (sub reqd.)

Does the world have the technology to tackle global warming? The debate continues, in the NYT, Climate Progress, and Talk Climate Change. Much of the debate about climate change is shaped by UN scenarios for economic growth and energy use—learn all you ever wanted to about the IPCC scenarios at Green Car Congress.

James Hansen strikes again, reports the Guardian, warning that those current forecasts are way too cautious, and urging more ambitious climate policies. That would be sheer folly, says a former Thatcher minister in the FT: The uneven application of climate policies around the world could lead to more protectionism and less economic development for everyone, especially in the poorest countries. Where they also want to make their voice heard: the NYT reports on Amazonian indigenous groups anxious to help craft economic incentives to keep forests intact.

The U.K. should embrace French companies running its nuclear industry, argues an FT editorial: They know what they are doing and war with France is unlikely. Of course, before the U.K. nuclear revival can get under way, it needs to figure out a way to finance plant decommissioning, in the Guardian. Nuclear power could be an option for Kansas, given controversy over coal, in Atomic Insights.

The challenge facing California is to get the last bits of carbon emissions out of cars, in the WSJ (sub reqd.) But even the expected roll-out of hydrogen cars and plug-in hybrids will be just a “rounding error” in the total fleet. So better push for more flex-fuel vehicles that can run on ethanol, in the Toronto Star. Nonsense, says Paul Krugman in the NYT: “demon ethanol” is partly to blame for higher food prices around the world. Maybe there’s an easier way: Learn how to drive. Motorists in Denver will monitor braking and acceleration to improve fuel-efficiency by 20%, reports the L.A. Times. The WSJ has video on making your own hybrid car.

Comments (2 of 2)

We continue to see importers bidding against each other for declining net oil exports. At the rate that oil prices have gone up in the past six months, they would double every 18 months. For more information on our work, do a Google Search for Net Oil Exports + Jeffrey Brown.

10:22 am April 7, 2008

Solvere Lim Swee Keng wrote :

Dear Industrialized world

Energy demand, transporation needs will only escalate as civilization progress.

Burning refined crude, or bourbon to move a ton of steel to carry one person is foolish, especially you need much more energy to transport, process the crude, the corn....

You should do this
1. use the best agriculture produce for food.
2. then for animal, industrial feedstock
3. then for packaging, construction
4. used, cannot be used, plagued, dead, waste burn for energy.

We must help auto giant to move away from Internal Combustion Engine, like Aerospace did after WWII.
If Aerospace did not, Jumbo will be heavier than USS Nitmz. F16 cannot fly.

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Environmental Capital provides daily news and analysis of the shifting energy and environmental landscape. The Wall Street Journal’s Keith Johnson is the lead writer. Environmental Capital is led by Journal energy reporter Russell Gold, and includes contributions from other writers at the Journal, WSJ.com, and Dow Jones Newswires. Write us at environmentalcapital@wsj.com.